Jamie Carragher believes Mohamed Salah is in pole position for the 2025 Ballon d'Or. And the Anfield legend thinks the Egyptian superstar will scoop football's most prestigious individual award if he fires Liverpool to the Premier League title this season.

And Reds legend Jamie Carragher also says the fact that Salah's numbers are rivalling the output of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo during their peak at Barcelona and Real Madrid, respectively, is proof of just how outrageous the Premier League's leading marksman has been under Arne Slot at the halfway point this term.

In a segment on Monday Night Football, Carragher analysed a graphic that showed the best years at the halfway stage of a campaign for some of the most productive individual terms across European football in recent years, with Salah's 17 goals and 13 assists placing him in third behind the 2014-15 campaign for Ronaldo at Madrid, where he had plundered 28 goals and nine assists, and the 2010-11 term for Messi at Barca, where he had clocked up 21 goals and 14 assists.

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Carragher believes Salah, who has 20 goals across all competitions, can enjoy the sort of the season that wins major honours with Liverpool and, as a result, that will see him move up in the conversation where both the Ballon d'Or gong and his all-time standing at Anfield are concerned.

"I think, you know, right now you look at him and I think we're seeing an all-time season," Carragher said. "Listen, there were so many stats flying around on social media on Sunday about Mohamed Salah and we knew we had to do something big on him so rather than the Premier League, I thought: 'What's the best season that Ronaldo or Messi have had, halfway through a season?'

"I mean their numbers for years were so great but he's basically [just] behind those two. It's pretty unbelievable when you think of the consistency of Ronaldo and Messi at Real Madrid and Barcelona, the fact Ronaldo has only beaten the numbers Salah is getting now once is, well I couldn't believe it and Messi only twice, it just shows...

"I am not even sure of the exact figures but I think maybe three or four times, I think of Erling Haaland a couple of years ago, I think of the season Thierry Henry got 20 goals and 20 assists, Luis Suarez under Brendan Rodgers when it was just one season off the scale, Alan Shearer at Blackburn Rovers. We could be seeing an absolute all-time season that we never forget [from Salah].

"I think Mo Salah had that in his first season [44 goals all competitions] but I said on this show a few weeks ago about his [contract] comments after Southampton, I said he was in the top five players that has ever played for Liverpool.

"I think if he takes Liverpool to the title and he ends with the Premier League Player of the Year awards, which if he wins it will be the third time he's won it - no-one has ever won it three times - if he does that, then he's not in the top five, he's basically fighting with Steven Gerrard and Kenny Dalglish to see who is Liverpool's greatest ever player.

"If he can add that to what he's already done at Liverpool, he sort of leaves an Ian Rush or a Graeme Souness behind him and goes alongside those two who most Liverpool fans argue about who is the greatest ever to play for Liverpool."

Carragher added: "I think Mo Salah has always seen himself, I wouldn't say as good as Messi and Ronaldo, but I think in that bracket as one of the best players in the world. He feels he has been unjustly maybe not given certain awards and we talk about the Ballon d'Or.

"I think the Ballon d'Or, a lot of the time, revolves around a tournament, an international tournament and whoever wins it, the best player normally picks it up, or the Champions League winner. It's always difficult for Egypt, I don't think they've won an Africa Cup of Nations with Salah, but also to win the World Cup as well.

"If Liverpool were to win the league and go really close or even win the Champions League and the fact that (Jylian) Mbappe at Real Madrid hasn't started as he would like and Haaland has not had the season he would like or he's not at his best, I think those factors means this will be Salah's best opportunity of winning the Ballon d'Or.

"He's probably No.1 right now and if he replicates what he's done the first half of the season I think he wins the Ballon d'Or."